The present invention generally relates to methods and apparatus for dispensing prescriptions. More specifically, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for staging medications for dispensing and filling containers, such as vials.
Generally, out-patients from a hospital or medical office have been provided with prescriptions in one of two ways. One way is to provide oral, solid prescriptions that are prefilled in vials at a remote location and kept in inventory at a pharmacy. These prefilled vials are removed from stock when needed and relabelled with patient specific information. Another method involves filling prescriptions by having a pharmacist hand-count the required drugs from a bulk supply and then place a patient specific label on a vial.
There are disadvantages to both of these prescriptions filling methods. If pharmacists elect to use prefilled vials, they must carry an inventory of several hundred drug types. Further, they must manage inventory levels and monitor stock for expiring products. Generally, a pharmacist will pay a premium for having the vials prefilled.
On the other hand, filling prescriptions from bulk on an individual basis is very labor intensive and subject to human accounting errors. Further, servicing a large out-patient population requires large numbers of pharmacists.
Many out-patient facilities use a combination of these two systems, supplying prefilled vials on high volume products and hand-filling vials with products that are less in demand.
A method of direct dispensing drugs into a vial is used in some operations. Direct dispensing is a process wherein tablets are dispensed one at a time and counted during each dispensing stroke. The counting stroke accounts for a high accuracy rate but significantly reduces the speed of drug delivery.
Often, a single order may require the dispensing of as many as 200 different drugs to fill the order. However, individual canisters only store a single drug. Therefore, if 200 different drugs are required to fill an order, the vial must be re-positioned 200 separate instances to fill an individual order. This method of repositioning and dispensing is known as serial processing.
Serial processing can be a very accurate method of dispensing drugs to fill a prescription. Using serial processing, the drugs can be either counted by a machine referred to as an "automatic tablet counter" or by hand. The individual drugs are simultaneously dispensed into a vial and counted. While this method can be very accurate, it also can be quite time-consuming.
Additionally, after all of the drugs for an order have been dispensed into vials, the vials are capped and labeled. Each vial generally contains one drug. Different labels are, therefore, required for identifying the contents of the vials as well as special instructions for taking the drugs by the patient. The vials are then sorted so that all vials for one order are grouped together.